This is the twelfth in an ongoing series, updated biweekly, about where the real election — the one decided state by state, rather than national polling — stands. As usual, we’ll start with the electoral vote breakdowns, then move on to the state-by-state polling for the swing states, followed by my musings about what it all means. All the numbers are from Friday 10/2. This week we add a 15th election modeling site, fivethirtyeight’s electoral projections.
Fivethirtyeight: Biden 333, Trump 205. The fivethirtyeight forecast page has all kinds of goodies, including their chart of election simulations (Biden is listed as winning 79 of every 100 times), a “snake chart” ordering states from bluest to reddest, and more. Right now the weakest D states are OH, NC, FL, and AZ, along with the ME-2 and NE-2 congressional districts. The weakest R states are GA, IA, and TX.
Ourprogress.org: Biden 289, Trump 125, 124 tossups (updated 10/1; no change). Toss-ups are FL, GA, IA, NC, OH, and TX. The no toss-up option shows Biden 389, Trump 149 (Biden +38).
PredictIt markets: Biden 335, Trump 203 (updated daily; Biden +16). Closest states are FL and NC (tilt D) and GA, IA and OH (tilt R).
ElectionProjection.com: Biden 319, Trump 219 (updated 10/1; no change). Weakest D states are AZ, FL, MI, NH, PA, and WI; weakest R states are GA, IA, NC and OH.
JHK model: Biden 335 Trump 203 (updated 10/2; Biden +9). AZ, FL, GA, IA, NC and OH are the closest states.
Princeton Election Consortium: Biden 357, Trump 181 (updated daily; Biden +5). The link to PEC’s 270towin.com map shows GA and IA as tossups; AZ, OH, and NC are the weakest D states, AK and AR the weakest R states.
CNN: Biden 269, Trump 169, 100 tossups (Biden +1). Tossups are FL, GA, NC, OH, PA, and the ME-2 and NE-2 districts.
The Economist: Biden 335, Trump 203 (updated daily; no change). Tossups (“Uncertain” states) are AZ, GA, NC and OH.
Electoral-vote.com: Biden 324, Trump 164, ties 50 (updated daily; +50 for ties, mainly shifting back from Biden). Ties are FL, IA, and NC; weakest D states are GA and OH; weakest R states are AR and TX.
Plural Vote: Biden 322, Trump 216 (updated daily; Trump +8). Weakest D states are AZ, FL, GA and NC; weakest R states are IA, OH and TX.
Rachel Bitecofer: Biden 318, Trump 123, 97 tossups (no update; no change). Tossups are AK, GA, IA, NC, OH, TX, and 1 Congressional district in NE.
Inside Elections: Biden 319, Trump 188, 31 tossups (updated 10/1; no change). Tossups are GA and NC. Weakest D states remain AZ, FL, WI; weakest R states remain IA, OH, and TX.
Sabato's Crystal Ball: Biden 279, Trump 179, 80 tossups (updated 10/1; Biden +10, tossups +15). Tossups are AZ, FL, IA, NC, and OH.
Cook Political Report: Biden 290, Trump 163, 85 tossups (updated 9/29; tossups +42, mostly from Trump). Tossups are FL, GA, IA, NC, OH, the ME-2 district.
Real Clear Politics: Biden 226, Trump 125, 187 tossups (updated daily; Biden +4). The no toss-up map now shows Biden 375, Trump 163 (Biden +22).
The big picture: The last two weeks have been good to Biden. Of 15 sites, all but 2 (CNN and RCP) show an outright Biden victory before any toss-ups are decided. Go with the no toss-up option where available, and it’s 14 of 15, with CNN showing Biden at exactly 50% (269 of 538). 12 of 15 show Biden with more than 300 electoral votes after assigning toss-ups. Nine of these are in the 318-335 range, which is starting to look like a consensus.
State-by-state: Here are current polling averages from fivethirtyeight and RCP, in order of largest to smallest margins for Biden as predicted by 538. I’ve added Arkansas , because it was a weak R state in a couple of models.
(1) NH: Spreads are Biden +9.1 (538, up 2.4) and Biden +8.4 (RCP). A Clinton state in 2016 that looks solid for Biden, so I’m not sure what electionprojection is thinking.
(2) MN: Spreads are Biden +8.8 (538, no change) and Biden +9.4 (RCP). Even RCP has given up on thinking MN is a swing state (it’s rated “leans Biden” on their map), so we’ll drop NH and MN next week.
(3) MI: Spreads are Biden +6.7 (538, down 1.0) and Biden +5.2 (RCP).
(4) WI: Spreads are Biden +6.4 (538, down 0.3) and Biden +5.5 (RCP).
(5) NV: Spreads are Biden +5.7 (538, up 0.2) and Biden +5.3 (RCP). The third and final Clinton state on this list, and still little evidence of a serious GOP threat.
(6) PA: Spreads are Biden +5.5 (538, up 0.6) and Biden +5.7 (RCP). The Rust Belt trifecta that handed Trump the Presidency in 2016 (MI, WI, PA) have shown consistent Biden leads outside the margin of error for months. With Biden’s advantage above 5 points in all of them, Joe must be feeling pretty good
(7) AZ: Spreads are Biden +3.2 (538, down 1.6) and Biden +3.0 (RCP).
(8) FL: Spreads are Biden +2.0 (538, down 0.2) and Biden +1.1 (RCP).
(9) NC: Spreads are Biden +1.0 (538, down 0.2) and Biden +0.5 (RCP).
(10) OH: Spreads are Biden 0.6 (538, up 2.1) and Biden +3.3 (RCP). There may be a genuine swing back towards Biden here.
(11) GA: Spreads are Biden +0.3 (538, up 1.7) and Biden +0.3 (RCP). And a possible swing towards Biden here as well.
(12) IA: Spreads are Trump +1.0 (538, Biden up 0.8) and Biden +0.5 (RCP).
(13) AR: Spreads are Trump +2.0 (538) and Trump +2.0 (RCP), both based on the same single poll. More polling is definitely needed here.
(14) TX: Spreads are Trump +2.3 (538, Biden down 1.1) and Trump +3.2 (RCP). This may not be the year for the “blue shift” in Texas.
(15) AK: Trump +2.8 (538, Biden up 0.5); based on 4 polls for this year, with Trump only leading by 1 in the most recent. AK could in fact be really close, but with only 3 EV’s Biden’s time and money are much better spent elsewhere.
The last couple of weeks — in fact, just the last week — have seen multiple “October Surprises,” first with Trump’s long-awaited tax returns finally coming to light; then Trump’s appalling behavior in the first debate, which even GOP toadies struggled to defend; and finally, Trump’s hospitalization with COVID-19, literally just days after he mocked Biden in front of a national and international debate audience for wearing a mask. It’s too soon to say how Trump’s hospitalization will affect the race, but it certainly makes his denial and minimization of the pandemic look foolish, and the polling shifts over the last couple of weeks have generally favored Biden in individual states and the electoral vote count.
We now have 4 ½ weeks until election day — but millions have already voted by mail or early in-person voting, and it’s entirely possible a majority of votes will be cast before election day. Trump is rapidly running out of time, a new embarrassing revelation or scandal occurs every couple of days, and the latest polling has not shifted in his favor.